FFT: Never Judge A Book By Its Cover

I’ve been seeing a book everywhere recently. I don’t remember its name, but its cover sticks with me. Why? Because it’s horrible. It’s part of a series and both books have a cover that I detest. I haven’t even read the blurb but just looking at its cover, I know I won’t read it. The cover is superficial. It’s so unappealing to me that I refuse to read it.

This has never happened to me before. Even if a cover was “meh”, I still gave that book a chance. But here I am, choosing not to read a book, just by its cover.

“Never judge a book by its cover.” We’ve all heard that. Unfortunately, most of us do it anyway. Covers are the first thing that draws our eye. They’re the first thing that we see, the first thing that makes us think: Huh, maybe I should check this book out. No matter if the book is good or not, we still judge the book by its cover.

There’s even memes like Lusting for Covers by The Book Queen, where they feature a great cover or Cover Wars by the Book Whore, where they vote for the best cover.

Covers are essential to the promoting of a book. There’s been times where a book has gotten a new cover after a while of it being published. Most self-published books don’t have awesome covers, because they don’t have artists and the resources available to publishers.

So now it’s your turn. Has there ever been a time where you didn’t read a book just because of its cover? How much do covers play a part when choosing whether or not to buy a book?

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One thought on “FFT: Never Judge A Book By Its Cover”

I haven't not read a book just for it's cover, but I have bought a book based on the cover alone. I tended to look for covers I like or that catch my attention. Lately, though, I've noticed a lot of fantasy/scifi books have similar covers and while the artwork is well done, I read the back and am underwhelmed. The covers are so overwhelming, the preview is boring in comparision. Covers for books like Such a Pretty Face by Kathy Lamb and Beachcombers by Nancy Thayer are simple and tie in their stories well, without being too obvious. I prefer that.